BASEBALL

Baseball Rolls Big in Game One before King Returns Favor in Game Two

BRISTOL, T.N. – Pfeiffer University and host King College split a Friday afternoon Conference Carolinas baseball doubleheader at the King Baseball Complex. The Falcons cruised 14-4 in the opener while the Tornado exploded late for an 11-2 win in game two. Pfeiffer improves to 20-18 overall while King moves to 22-14. Both teams stand at 11-9 in league play.

In the opener, Pfeiffer scored in seven of the nine innings played while pounding out 16 hits and taking advantage of five King errors. Those first of those five errors led to the first Falcon run in the first with the visitors eventually grabbing a 2-1 lead in the fourth on a Jacob Yates sacrifice fly. The Tornado would square game one in their fourth until Pfeiffer opened things up with three in the fifth.

Jon Gray began the frame with a RBI-double to left while Aarin Sharpe soon followed with the same thing. Dalton Lindley would finish the trifecta of three RBI-doubles to score Sharpe on the very next play. After the Tornado responded with a run in the fifth, Cole McGraw provided a two-run triple while Sharpe singled him in to put Pfeiffer up 8-3 after six.

Justin Harris got in the action with a run-scoring single in the seventh while Matt Wade did the same with his two-run double in the eighth. The Falcons finished off game one with three in the ninth on another McGraw two-run two-bagger and a Lindley single through the left side.

Harris and McGraw would each finish game one with three hits while Sharpe, Lindley and Wade each concluded with two. Tyler Ring got the opening win on the mound tossing the mandatory five innings allowing three runs on seven hits while fanning five.

Pfeiffer would strike first in game two as a Preston Lyon RBI-double scored Kevin Price in the top of the first. After King responded with two in their first, Sharpe would square things up with his own RBI double to left-center for a 2-2 contest. King would take over from there adding three in the third using a two-run blast before scoring a half-dozen in the fifth on four hits thanks in part to a three-run triple.

Both teams will engage in the rubber match of the three-game set at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.